Saturday’s Opening Day for boats means Montlake Bridge will close for cars

Image: Seatlle P-I Collection, MOHAI

Saturday is the Opening Day of boating season and Windermere Cup regatta so the only traffic passing through Montlake will be the floating kind. The Montlake Bridge will close to vehicles from 7am10am to 4pm as will 520’s westbound exit to Montlake Blvd. Thousands of people attend this annual event and with sun in the forecast through the weekend, a big turnout along the shores of the Ship Canal is expected.

The Windermere Cup will be Ivy League this year, as Washington hosts Cornell and Dartmouth. Races begin at 9:55 and wrap up with the Women’s and Men’s Eights just before noon. The parade of boats follows until 3pm with upwards of 900 vessels steaming out into Lake Washington.

For those with sails approaching 60′, you’ll be pleased to know that construction crews working on the new 520 Bridge have moved their barges out of the East Channel for this weekend’s boat traffic. Cruise through now, because at 11:59pm Sunday night it’s back to drawspan openings at mid-lake.

This would be a good time to remember that WSDOT provides email and text alerts for 520 drawspan openings two hours beforehand. Sign up here to avoid the traffic backups (same rules as last year: no openings from 6:30-10am and 3-7pm Monday-Friday) or risk hanging out on the bridge for up to half an hour.